The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1887-05-13
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
THERE Is NO SUCH THING AS TIE NEW
SOUTH

e"os, "oe VII Pioou VI ~. Just let any
body come out and fling at her and her
friends come out like hornets from
nest. Professor Tillett, of tho Wander.
bilt University, has been ventilatins his
sophomore opinions in the Century, and
belittleing the grand old gentlemen of the
olden time as "depen1eut idlers' and
gentlemen idlers," and says they were
little more than overseers of the blacks"
He asserts that "all our advancement in
industry and prosperity, and education,
and literature, and morals, and religion is
due to the emanci patton of the white man
from his bondage to idlcness, which is in
separablc from the ownership of slaves"
don't know who this professor is, nor
whore he was born, but tho spirit of his
article is foul SANDER upon the old South
Hc either knew nothing about her or he is
just writing for buncombe. Just such
tissue of misconception and misreprcsenta
ton was never gotten together-not even by
Gable.
The Christian Aduocate of Nashville,
seems to be intensely disgusted, and says:
els it all new? Was there no manhood
until now? Was the great names that we
revered only the cotures of fancy-the
myths that appear in the early history of
all barbarous people? Were Washington
and Jefferson and Madison mere creatures
of mythologic ago? Were Jackson, and
Clay, and Calhoun, aud Benton, and Ma
con, and Polk, and Bell, and Stephens,
and Crittenden the demi-gods of prehis-
toric race? Is it delusion that TAYLOR.
and Houston, and Crockett, and Travis.
and Lee, and jackson, and Sidney John.
ston, and Stuart, and Morgan, and Forrest
belonged to the old South !? Who are the
men that now lead the new South, but the
men who led the old South Who repre-
sent us in tho halls of Congress, and who
administer our State Governments? Who
run our railways, 4 factories, aud fur
naces, and educational institutions? In a
word, what is there that is good in the
new South that was not rooted in the old
South 2
Then the Christian Me1en takes it up
and says:
'We belong to the new South and hope
to keep abreast of her in all her progress
in what is good. But We also belong to
the old South and are proud Of her history.
We acknowledge our present as the off
spring Of our past and not of somebody
else's past. What there is good in us is
not of puritan origin. The puritans are
welcome to their own glory, but they shall
not appropriate ours. We shall transmit
to our posterity what we received from
our forelathers-.the history, traditions,
characters and blood Of thecavaler.
But the most elaborate and admirable
reply to Professor Tillett comes from DIR.
B. E. Ward, in the Mississippi Clarion
1t is grand, it is eloquent and convincing
1t is worthy to be preserved in every scrap
book 1t swells the heart Of tho true
Southerncr with pride. He reads it and
feels good and reads it again. He says in
the Outset that tho professor is skirmish-
ing to bring himself within the scope of
the gale which has recently given such a
graceful swell to the sails of Mr.. Grady,
but unfortunately his zeal is not tempered
with the vein of native loyalty which Tin
giles through the eloquence of Georga's
gifted and popular editor
He says in his summing up for period
Of Ga years, from 1889 to 1853, the South
furnished eight Presidents whose terms
covered 81 years. She furnished fourteen
Secretaries of State, eleven Secretaries of
War, thirty -nino Presidents of the Senate,
thirty-one Speakers Of the House, two
Chief Justices of great c:ninence, twenty
nine Associate Justices, twenty-one After
ney Generals and niuety-pino ministers to
foreign countries.
There is no new South. The term is
m,snomer and myth. 1t is simply a
phrase costume in which old prejudices
masquerade through modern prints seek
iug to pcrvert the education of Southern
children into the conviction that their an-
ccs!ors, il not criminals, were little more
than race Of idIcss, blundercrs, block.
heads and failures. The literature left By
our statesmen will stand as monuments o:
wisdom and models Of classical lore. In
oil the departments Of government, in law,
literature and science, while the South
has boasted Of no great army of writers,
she has furnished ths minds nroduc,iva of